Gravity is stronger around older people scientists claim

'Since Aristotle scientists have struggled with the puzzle of why old people tend to drop things more often than other age groups,' said Professor Bud Johnson of Alabama University. 'It's because gravitional force is stronger around them.'

Joe Cox (89) who drops something everyday, said he was relieved to discover he wasn't the 'butterfingers' his wife Jane (26) had dubbed him.

Asked to explain why toddlers and young children were forever dropping things, Professor Johnson said gravity was also more powerful around them because their hands were closer to the ground than those of adults.

Scientists believe that one reason gravitational forces are stronger around old people is that they often form binary systems with what are known as 'gravity well purses'. These are tiny purse-shaped objects similar to black holes. They are so small that they are impossible to see into, so nobody yet knows what may be found inside. The theory is that each purse contains a gravity well so intense that nothing can ever be removed from it. Many old people spend hours of their lives standing at supermarket checkouts trying to extract something from these purses but all efforts to date have met with failure.

Scientists also warn that some old people have become so feeble-minded and frail that they are thought to be in danger of becoming singularities, i.e. an object that has infinite density and almost no volume.

Another interesting phenomenon associated with the old is that many have been found to be surrounded by a dense, high ammonia content atmosphere similar to that of Jupiter. The source of this ammonia seems to be the equatorial regions of the body. What scientists term the 'scent horizon' for these bodies has been known to be located as far as 100 metres from the source.